Tearing the Veil from Grace
by Vallory Russups
Summary: An infant, Harry ends up in his parents' time and dashes the course of events completely. He escapes the orphanage, forges friendships, acquires a pub-keeping mentor, spirals into a twisted relationship, forges friendships, makes enemies, and dreams of truths... And pierces the veil between the dead and the living. LVHP, LMHP, Necromancer!Harry, the Marauders' Era, Time-Travel
1. Chapter 1 A Poetic Tragedy

Disclaimer: don't own the canon at all, but if you want to borrow my OCs or other magical tidbits, please notify me at least.

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Summary: An infant, Harry ends up in his parents' time and dashes the course of events completely. He escapes the orphanage, forges friendships, acquires a pub-keeping mentor, spirals into a twisted relationship, forges friendships, makes enemies, and dreams of truths... And pierces the veil between the dead and the living.

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Warnings: a Very Long Fic, rather slow-building slash with a lot of kinks once it actually starts (all explicitness will be on lj), Plot, later deaths, torture, gore - the usual (but nothing overwhelmingly graphic).

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AN: This story is the re-write of "From the Depths of Darkness". If you're acquainted with it, you can skip this chapter and go straight to the notes below. If you didn't like that story, I'd appreciate it if you still gave this one a shot: it ended up completely different in many way, with only a few coinciding events past the 1st chapter. After I post a bit more, I'll put up a notice in FDD where I'll explain in detail all the differences. Any new readers: you can read that story, but, I repeat it, the events will unfold differently in many ways.

It'd be great if you waited 'til chapter two at least to judge this story. Not least because my writing style here doesn't exactly correlate with the way I write now, and I daresay my writing has improved :)

Enjoy!

(And do review please!)

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Chapter 1. Poetic Tragedy

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A year passed since the memorable evening when Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall doomed young Harry Potter to living with a human farmhouse. A horse, a walrus and a colourful beach ball, which was slowly but steadily becoming more like a pig, hated their unexpected relative with passion surpassing even that of Voldemort.

Luckily, Harry was still just a baby and physically unable to do the chores he would otherwise be made to do. And the strange happenings around the child prevented most of the abuse.

Of course, Petunia and, consequently, her husband Vernon knew about the wretched boy's magic and what it entailed. The woman, after all, had had to grow up with her freakish sister, and, no matter how much she hated them, the displays of accidental magic hardly stumped her.

The sight of dead and rotting creatures roaming the house, however...

Even with their general disgust and ignorance regarding the Wizarding world, the Dursleys knew that it wasn't normal even for _them_.

It wasn't normal to wake up to the chirping sounds of the previously dead parrot, which had been bought to their lovely Dudders on a whim and which everyone had been forgetting to feed.

It wasn't normal to have half-rotten mice and other rodents running around the house on their little paws, making small sounds day and night and disturbing whatever guests the Dursleys wanted to invite.

It wasn't normal to see their garden dead and completely grey-coloured one day, only to find it filled with blooming flowers the next morning.

It wasn't normal to feel afraid, no, _terrified_, of a small child, who could barely walk on his two feet and had a long road ahead of him to reach the table.

They strived for a life of normalcy, yet the existence of that wretch ruined it all, razed to the ground all their efforts at establishing a generic household.

Now, all their neighbours avoided the Dursleys like the plague. Wherever the family went, people whispered behind their backs about the strange occurrences in the household. Petunia couldn't trade gossip with her so-called 'friends', as they were offended and insulted at not being invited to her house anymore. Vernon's job hung by a thread, because he, too, couldn't hold proper dinner parties with investors and all sorts of influential people.

Out of the inhabitants of the house only Dudley evaded all the social assault and led the life of a happy toddler, albeit the dead animals and insects frightened him. They had taken a great dislike towards him and caused numerous accidents, some of which had harmed him. Petunia wouldn't leave his side for days.

All in all, the life of the family changed drastically in such a short span of time, going from peaceful and quiet to chaotic and hazardous. No one knew when it would all stop, but the patience of one Vernon Dursley would collapse any second.

{**Tearing the Veil from Grace**}

"I'm sorry, Vernon, old friend, but I _have_ to fire you." A note of apology peeked through in the manager's voice as he stared at his emp- ex-employee with pity.

"B-but-" Vernon spluttered, unable to utter a single coherent word. His life was disintegrating. The mortgage, the vacation, the car, the foodstaffs and clothing and presents... He misheard, obviously.

"There are certain rumours," the man behind the desk commented before shaking his head. He was firing one of his best workers, a good lad, but the clients always came first, and their demands didn't leave him with any other alternative. "Some of them are quite entertaining. And amusing. However, when I have to hear about people not wanting to conduct business with a child abuser, it's not something I can easily ignore, you know."

"A child abuser!" Vernon bellowed. His eyes, deranged and muddled, madly shifted, while his hands balled into fists and his shoulders shook with fury.

Impossible.

His family was normal. He justified his deeds, Petunia justified her deeds, and Dudley would agree with any philosophy as long as he attained his toys, and all agreed that their treatment of the freak deserved appreciation and respect for daring to deal with the abomination. They ventured fight against the abnormal, a feat not many boasted and fewer still achieved.

And for his manager to dismiss it so! As if _Vernon_ was in the wrong-!

"-When so many people talk about the matter," the manager looked up to pierce Vernon's eyes. The obese man gulped. "One has to wonder if there is a seed of truth to these rumours, after all."

"Y-you believe this gossip more than me?" Vernon's tiny eyes widened with disbelief. Childhood friends. They had attended school together, had been hiding in their secret bases, had shared their first drinks and cigarettes and football victories- And a single rumour took it all away. "We have known each other for years!"

The freak's fault. It was all the freak's fault.

The manager sighed and rubbed his temples. His entire form hunched in on itself, world-weary and old, reminding Vernon of his own creeping age.

"Our company works with _people_, Vernon. And if they don't want you here, I'm sorry to say it, but you are of no use to us. I'll have to let you go."

_Everything _the freak's fault.

Anger dashed the disbelief; Vernon's face was heating up. He knew who was responsible for this. Who was to blame for all their misfortunes. That little shit had spoilt all their perfect _normal_ life and he was going to pay for that. Vernon would see to it.

The manager watched warily as his ex-subordinate's face swelled with red from rage, and piggy eyes filled with deep hatred. He certainly hoped that his old friend wasn't directing all that loathing at him.

"I have to ask you to clear up your workspace now. The money has already been transferred to your account," he said finally.

Vernon nodded curtly and stormed out of the office. The door slammed shut behind him in a dramatic motion. His fists were clenching and unclenching, and he wanted to badly hurt the abomination, which had ruined his life so completely.

{**Tearing the Veil from Grace**}

Petunia was watching television when she heard Vernon's car pull to a stop at the driveway. She frowned at that. Her husband was usually the one to work till as late as possible to earn more money for their dear little angel, even if it meant working at weekends sometimes.

Coming from work so early was out of character for him and it made her feel wary. Her suspicions only increased as Vernon stormed into the house with the expression of someone ready to commit a murder.

"Dear? Are you all right?" she asked hesitantly. She left the question 'And why are you at home so early?' unsaid, but both heard it anyway.

"Where is the freak?" he shouted instead of answering. His eyes glinted with righteous fury and Petunia thought that he wouldn't hesitate to hit her if she unwittingly obstructed his plans. Still, trying never hurt.

"In the cupboard, where he should be. He won't be able to escape the place, hopefully. And there are no rodents there to gnaw on the locks, like it happened with the second bedroom. Why?" She moved to the front of the staircase.

Sure, she abhorred the boy, to the point of desiring his death, but she wouldn't let her husband go in jail for the little eyesore. She would help Vernon plan the murder so that it couldn't be linked to them in any way. She had to preserve what was left of her 'respectable lady' status.

Now, though, Vernon wasn't able to think about scheming and careful preparations, because the loathing was burning its way in his insides, consuming and stifling, no other thought permitted under its intolerable net of fire.

He roughly shoved Petunia to the floor. In his deranged state he didn't care about his wife's surprised cry of pain or the fact that she could have broken a couple of her bones with the force he had pushed her. He ignored her winces of pain. He disregarded her shrieks.

The man forcefully knocked the door of the cupboard down and froze at what was inside.

The two-and-a half-year-old child was sitting on a dirty mattress and was curiously watching the spiders dance on the floor in front of him. He looked up when he heard the noise, and fascination in his radiant green eyes changed to confusion as he watched his Uncle stand in the doorway.

Vernon's mouth hung open like that of a fish, and he honestly didn't know what to do or how to act. His brain didn't accommodate a vast range of possibilities, so it grasped nothing further than plan A, missing the point of making up plans B, C, and other letters of the alphabet. All his anger evaporated and pure animalistic _fear_ snapped in its place.

He remembered what the boy was. All the abnormalities.

Petunia regained her footing and, rubbing her aching back, scrambled to the door to see what startled her husband. When she clapped her eyes on the insects, she let out a horrified gasp.

"Insects!" she screeched, wildly flailing her hands about. "In my house!"

It wasn't just one spider dancing, no. That would probably be quite ordinary for their unnatural nephew. The tiny creatures cluttered the floor, crawled up the walls, infested the mattress, steadily broke out of the confines of the cupboard. They littered everything,

For the first time Petunia realised that maybe they shouldn't have left the boy locked in hopes of starving him to death. Next time they should place him somewhere with no life _at all_. Their 'assassination' attempt would have had more chances of success that way.

Well, they would cook up another method after having cleared the entire place of the spiders, which now clustered every inch of the floor. They were on the walls and on the tiles, on the expensive furniture and on the precious frames with the images of a toothless Dudley in them.

Both Dursleys forgot all about the boy as they attempted to kill off as many insects as possible. Vernon stomped on them with his enormous feet, and his face reddened from the physical effort. Petunia wasn't faring much better. She took off her pink fluffy slippers and tried to destroy the spiders swarming the nearest wall, letting out a battle cry with each hit.

All this time Harry was watching his two relatives with enjoyment and childish mirth dancing in his eyes, and clapped his hands. One of his particularly loud giggles drew attention of the winded Vernon Dursley. The man stopped mid-motion and hatefully glared at the boy. The bastard was _laughing_ at them!

"You! Stop it this instant!" he hollered. The walls shook from the sheer force of the cry.

Harry's giggle died in his throat as he stared at his relatives in incomprehension. He couldn't honestly understand why those people didn't have fun as he did. So, with his confusion, eventually the spiders started dropping dead again because no magic and no emotion fuelled them anymore.

The Dursleys were once again preoccupied with dodging the tiny bodies falling at them from the ceiling to pay any real attention to what Harry was doing. And right now the boy tried to escape from the cupboard. He had realized that, somehow, these two weren't happy, and it never ended well for him when they were in such a peculiar mood. Vague recollections of an empty tummy, a dark place, and a train of his own cries knocked on his mind.

"Where are you going, boy!" the horse-faced woman shrieked. As she scrambled to grab him, Vernon beat her to it. He grabbed Harry by the collar of Dudley's old shirt and smashed his fist right in the boy's face.

Harry cried out in pain. He felt as if his face was one huge bruise, not unlike those on his ribs and arms. The obese man punched him a couple of times more before the boy lost his consciousness. Encouraged, Vernon tried to deal the last blows, and his wife's cheers resonated in his ears together with the sound of his rapidly beating heart.

He lifted his hand to punch the freak once more, eager to get rid of this menace. Only…

The fist crashed into the invisible wall right in front of the boy. Vernon howled in pain, cradling his damaged hand. His knuckles ran red, the colour that contrasted sharply with the pale skin of his fist but matched his rage.

"Vernon!" Petunia gasped and rushed to his side. She looked at her husband's red knuckles and moaned about how hurt he must be feeling. "Oh, dear, Vernon! Don't you worry, my sweet, Petunia will take care of your injury, don't worry. Everything will be all right, everything will be okay…"

The walrus slapped her hand away from him and scrambled to his feet. He glared hatefully at the boy he had dropped in his pain.

"It's all this freak's fault! All of it!" He tried to step on the boy, but the wall thwarted hid intentions. He turned to his wife. "This fucking old man told us about these 'wards' or something, didn't he?"

Petunia nodded, uncertain about where this was going. "Yes. When he left _it _on our doorstep. He wrote about them in the letter."

Vernon smiled sinisterly. "We cannot kill the abomination, but we can get rid of it. Now, I'll take the thing to London's suburbs and dump him there." He frowned when Petunia looked hesitant. "What's up, Pet? Don't you think it's brilliant?"

His wife nodded vigorously. "You will make me the happiest woman on earth if you manage to put him out of our hair. But… don't you fear that the car will get dirty with his dark powers?"

The man patted her back reassuringly.

"Don't worry about it, Pet. After this is over, we will buy a new car and a new home in a different neighbourhood. And we will become the family we have always wanted to be. _Completely normal_."

He squeezed the woman's hand and she smiled.

Yes, their life would be perfect after that. She was sure of it.

{**Tearing the Veil from Grace**}

Augustus Rookwood swore loudly as he Apparated to the place he didn't recognise. Well, obviously he appeared in the slums of some city, judging by the shady people around and dirty buildings. The man sneered and covered his brown hair with the hood of his cloak. Luckily, he had remembered to cast a notice-me-not charm on himself so that the muggles wouldn't discern his presence.

Clearly, his efforts were unnecessary. The muggles living there were too engaged in their own dubious activities to give a damn about what other people were doing. Augustus cast a glance at a junkie slut bargaining with a drug dealer about the price of the pills. When the man let out a coarse laugh and grabbed the woman's thighs, the wizard sneered and turned away from the disgusting sight.

Muggles. He couldn't understand how someone sympathised with the creatures sunk so low.

His thoughts drifted to his Master, now presumably dead. Lord Voldemort was the only person in their time that had enough guts to stand up for blood purity ideals, a feat not even the most renowned pureblood families had managed to accomplish. They preferred to stand aside and lament at how unfair things were and about their prejudiced society instead of actually doing something.

The Rookwood family was average enough and none of the members stood out in anything. They were well off, but not outstandingly so. They were smart, but their intelligence didn't cross the boundaries of the general Ravenclaw wisdom. Their looks didn't marvel or astound or bedazzle either; most of the Rookwoods carried a mane of brown hair and eyes to match. They didn't lean towards Light or Dark magic, preserving their neutrality and stepping aside to watch the world burn in wars and conflicts instead of dabbling in heroics like the Weasleys and even Malfoys did.

Until Augustus popped into existence, anyway.

The man had managed to get into the Department of Mysteries and become an Unspeakable to spy for their Lord. Not a sly-high feat for a former Ravenclaw. A mere low-ranker, Augustus's position didn't allow him to peek into the darkest secrets of the Ministry. Nevertheless, he had an access to the underground laboratories, where he had managed to create quite a few useful spells and trinkets that would aid the Dark Side when the Dark Lord would return from his unplanned vacation.

When. Never _if_.

Augustus had no doubt that their Master would return one day. He prepared for it diligently. He wanted to be different from all those arrogant fools grovelling at his Lord's feet, to be exceptional and highly valued, regarded as the dearest of assets rivalling even that old snake Lucius. The fact that Augustus craved His approval just as much didn't count.

The brown-haired man barely crossed the border of the dark alley when his attention snapped to the roaring sound of engine. A moment later he saw a fat ugly man bumbling out of the car. The man bore an exceptional resemblance to a walrus with his brown moustache, shaky layers of fat, and tiny eyes. In his hands he held a bundle of blankets, out of which strands of black hair peered.

What intrigued Augustus most, however, was the glare full of loathing that the man shot to the child (?) in his arms.

"Now you will die here, freak," the walrus muttered, placing the bundle on the pavement near the wall. He disregarded the puddle nearby and almost kicked the boy, but then froze in fear, watching something in the far end of the alley.

Augustus turned to look in that direction, too. Yet he was disappointed. There stood nothing more than a foul-smelling rat. Its red eyes were fixed on the obese man, who gulped when the rodent crept closer. Bewildered, Augustus glimpsed it missing chunks of flesh.

"W-what?" the walrus stuttered. "A good ratty, good. You will not touch old Vernon, right? Look, there is this freak full of tasty meat for you, just don't touch me, please!"

The man, Vernon, continued backing out until he bumped into the cool stone wall behind him. The sharp material dug into his back. Suddenly, another rat arrived, this time from the other corner of the alley. Then another. And again. Vernon broke out into sweat. Augustus watched with fascination how the events unfolded.

Vernon's strangled outcry seemed to be a signal of some kind. All the rats in the alley attacked him. They pounced on him and bit in, tearing into his flesh, as they devoured chunks of it. The man screamed in unbearable pain and tried to shake them off but didn't succeed. Their numbers overwhelmed him.

A few minutes later the man was reduced to nothing more than a mess of blood and meat and bones. The rats stopped...

And dropped dead all at once.

Augustus was left staring at the pile of flesh and red liquid. How-? He blinked and shook it off. It wasn't his business to know how muggle rats behaved. Maybe, the man had poison in his system. Or, maybe, it was normal for them. Who knew?

The man couldn't help being curious, though, and he knelt in front of the bundle. Lifting the colourful blanket, he gasped in surprise at the child's face. The boy was sleeping soundly, his breathing so soft it was almost inaudible. His eyebrows were furrowed and he shifted and fussed, as if in pain, having a nightmare, probably.

Most prominent, however, was the angry red scar resting against the pallor of his skin.

Augustus felt rage consume him. _That _was the reason for their Lord's downfall. The reason why he, Augustus Rookwood, had been hiding in the filth since his status as a Death Eater had been discovered. The reason he had lost the only person who saw some worth in him. The reason most of the Dark purebloods were now hunted, and anyone from a remotely Dark family was sent to Azkaban, just for being who they were, for using the magic their ancestors bestowed upon them in the Books of Shadows and ancient family grimoirs and incunabula.

The child was Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Couldn't-Even-Fucking-Die. The cause of all their pain, misery, and unhappiness.

Augustus raised his wand, Avada Kedavra on his lips, but stopped abruptly. No, it wouldn't do for the boy to die swiftly. He didn't deserve it one bit. Augustus Rookwood would make him pay for all the inconvenience the child had caused.

And didn't he know the perfect punishment?

One of the spells he had invented made a person experience pain worse than Cruciatus every second of their life. He had gotten the idea after reading about Norse snakes, whose venom, even a drop of it, caused unbearable pain to the person ingesting it. The wizard had named it the Loki Curse and prided himself on the invention.

True, he hadn't tested it and didn't know whether it would work. Not to mention that it was a recent invention. Still, he had to try.

With a spiteful glint in his brown eyes the man raised his wand and let the spell fall from his lips-

His eyes widened.

The Arithmancy formulae! One of the number chains created a glitch in the entire construction, and if he were correct, the results-

Augustus's world vanished under a blanket of darkness.

{**Tearing the Veil from Grace**}

_Year 1962_

Marie let out a contented sigh as she had just finished shopping for the orphanage. The children didn't receive nearly as much nutrition as she would have liked them to, but food remained food in her eyes, and the orphanage didn't afford a greater selection of foods than plain grains, vegetables, and occasional slabs of meat. Sometimes the woman used her personal allowance to gift the well-behaved children with a few sweets or biscuits from her own pocket.

Humming under her breath, Marie ambled to the truck waiting for her, its driver waving at her cheerfully before the man stuffed a cigarette in his mouth. She lucked out this time. The other driver was a nasty man, and the road to Godric's Hollow, long as it was, would be uncomfortable if spent in complete silence without even radio to reduce stress.

When they set off, Marie nested into her favourite shawl, hoping for a shut-eye...

Only to wake up with a start at the driver cussing and angrily gesticulating. She cracked her eyes open to see what that was all about.

A child right in the middle of the road.

Appalled at the person who could abandon their kid in such a dangerous place, she abandoned the truck and rushed to the bundle of blankets.

Determined, she picked up the child to deliver it to the orphanage. It was indeed the blessing from the skies that she found the child before a car ran it over. The driver only shot her a sad look.

"Marie! Why so long?" a plain-looking woman asked when Marie arrived, wearing a displeased expression. "Do you have no shame?"

"Children have been waiting for their food,." another, older woman, joined in. They hardly got any excitement in Godric's Hollow, so when all the oldies received an opportunity to ream into someone else, they grabbed it and bit into it with vigour. "You know we couldn't buy them anything yesterday and they had to eat only bread for a day…" She trailed off, looking at the bundle in Marie's arms.

"I'm sorry; I understand it was selfish of me to take so much time…" Marie smiled hesitantly and gestured at the boy "Umm, we have an addition, as you see."

The old woman, the matron probably, came closer and grabbed the boy. "Such a beautiful child…" she muttered. "Are you sure he was abandoned?"

"I… I don't think any good parent will leave their child in the middle of the road to die."

The matron looked at her sharply. It was one thing to get rid of the child, but she considered it inhumane to kill him. She looked at the quilt and saw the letters HJP engraved in golden stitching.

"HJP?" she read out loud. "Must be his initials." The boy's clothes consisted of second-hand rags, but the blanket was woven of the finest material. Strange.

"Should we name him?"

"Obviously, we can't call him by a set of letter," the matron snapped, irritated.

"How about Hadrian James? Sounds nice enough to me," offered the plump woman who had greeted Marie. Her face showed her disinterest. She was used to getting new kids, after all.

The matron pondered on it. "All right," she finally conceded and tapped her chin with a finger. "Hadrian James it is. Any suggestions about his surname? Marie? Hannah?"

"Umm… Paradis?" Marie timidly offered.

"God, Marie, you are so sentimental sometimes." Hannah sneered. "You can't just go around giving your surname to the orphans."

"It's just that it matches his initials and…" Here Marie's voice lowered into a whisper. "You know I wouldn't live for much longer. I want my father's surname to be passed down."

Hannah's eyes softened as she looked at her fellow caregiver pityingly. Everyone here knew that the woman had some a terminal disease and would live for only a couple of years longer. Marie was pretty useless, but the matron spared her and had provided her with a job here. From that moment they decided to keep her around to do some odd jobs and run errands. And children liked her mild manner and gentle smiles, too.

"Hadrian James Paradis," the matron murmured. "Not bad. Hope he will get along with other children."

Unfortunately, her hopes would be dashed.

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AN: The main difference with FDD in this chapter is that the events start in Godric's Hollow. Yes, with all the delightful possibilities that arise.


	2. Chapter 2 Dreams and Darkness Collide

**_VERY IMPORTANT!_**_ Hi, guys! The original writer of the story's got in a car accident, but lent me her journals with a plea to type all that thing out and post it sometime. 'Tis not abandoned, 'k? But until she recovers I can't answer your questions. And she permitted me to cut the length in two, 'cause I've got my own story to update, so the chappie's not as huge as it was in her notes. But look at the bright side, people! Prolly, I'll update next week. Most likely. As soon as I make out her pretty but infernal handwriting._

_'Tis still __her__ story. It's just that meh's updating. And it's better than nothing, dontcha think?_

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Chapter 2. Dreams and Darkness Collide

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It was a bright early morning, with sun already high up in the sky and shining full blast, and little Harry was enjoying his meal. Or, well, tried to, considering the pandemonium around him.

"-And he didn't get caught! Can you imagine? Sneaking out at night and all, and still not getting caught-" Jimmy Bart, a boy of Harry's age, whispered into his left ear urgently. His hands were nervously playing with the hem of his tattered greying shirt as he sneaked a glance at the older boys, one of whom seemed to be boasting, with a superior air hanging around him.

Little Harry automatically nodded, not knowing who the older boy was and not interested. The food on his plate – a couple of small potatoes and a tiny piece of pork – smelled delicious and looked inviting, and his mouth watered at the scant but tasty substance. Eagerly, the boy stabbed the meat and brought a forkful to his mouth, eyes closing in delight-

A shove. The fork missed his mouth and the pork flew to the ground. Harry followed it with depressed eyes.

A group of children at the neighbouring table rose and ran off to play tag before the caregivers would come to gather them all into the classrooms, and the piece of meat met its doom under the stampede of overly-excited orphans.

Harry's forehead scrunched up into a scowl as the boy looked to his right, glaring death at a little girl who didn't have the decency to even look apologetic but grabbed his elbow and pulled him closer to her to shout over the chaos of voices in the cafeteria.

"The time's almost up, Harry! Didn't Miss Johnson say we have to come earlier to the classroom today?"

Harry strained his ears to catch the last part, washed over as it was by a wave of laughter coming from yet another table, but his attention was snatched by Jimmy, who still hadn't finished talking, and a couple of pretty girls sitting on the opposite side of their table and demanding his contribution to their talk, and a few other small boys who were attempting to drag him to their room and show him the bird eggs they had found.

Waving them all off, Harry tried to concentrate on Cathy Davis, the girl who had spoken.

"Wait 'till I finish eating, at least!" he complained, sending half a potato down his gullet. "Besides, who wants to see this child-hating witch explain stuff to us so early in the morning?"

"She's not a witch; she's a teacher-"

But the other occupants of the table, including the Jimmy who had stopped telling tall tales about another imaginary adventure of someone else, rushed to agree with Harry. Nods and noises of concurrence followed.

"She torm- tarmen- What's the word again?"

"Torments?" Harry supplied helpfully, now finished with his plate but still hungry. He had memorised the word when the caregiver had punished him with learning twenty pages of dictionary by heart after a prank he had pulled on Ben Jonathan, yet another fellow orphan and Harry's enemy.

True, the punishment should have been greater – Harry had made the other boy cry, after all, and then laughed at him uproariously, which Jonathan had fully deserved – but the matron seemed to have a soft spot for him, and the caregivers were easily enchanted by his sweet boyish charm and sheepish laughs and a carefree attitude.

Jimmy nodded sombrely, his face a picture of seriousness, and continued, "Yeah, that. She torments us daily with stuff like writing and numbers and what not- And we're actually expected to remember it!"

"She isn't that bad..." Cathy Davis trailed off with a flicker of uncertain glance to Harry's face.

The other children looked at the wild-haired green-eyed boy, expectation written in their burning eyes. They would support whatever he said, Harry knew, had seen the proof many times. A smile blossomed on his face even as he shook his head. Happy. He felt happy about it.

"Learning isn't that important. I mean, we're children, right?" He swept them with a questioning glance and nodded, not expecting an answer. The children drank in their leader's voice. "It means we have a long life ahead of us to live. And does it really matter if we learn reading and writing and all this boring junk some years later? It's not like we need it _now_!"

"But the caregivers say-" a boy, Sam or something, Harry didn't truly remember, tried to say. Harry frowned and stared at the blond.

"They just... How is it called? Ah! _Manipulate_ you all!" Harry heard that word often in his dreams, said by different sets of lips and with different intonations and with varying connotations, but one thing remained certain for him: manipulation was a bad thing. Especially if the deranged laughter escaping his – in the dreams, he was different; his entire _character_ was different – lips was anything to go by.

_I don't want to think about this stuff,_ he decided resolutely and turned his attention back to his little group. The majority of children had gone to their appropriate classrooms, and the din of the cafeteria had subsided.

His friends were not-so-patiently waiting for him to elaborate.

"Meaning?" Jimmy Bart prompted.

"They are saying this just to get us into those stuffy classrooms and be quiet," Harry patiently explained, shaking off the frightening reminders of _those_ dreams. "Really, Jimmy, you have to be smarter than this."

They were... strange. Sometimes scary, sometimes fascinating, but always unexplainable, and many times Harry just lay in his bed until the very morning just so he wouldn't have to face the dreams –nightmares? – again and wonder if he was slowly going off his rocket in that dreary orphanage in the middle of nowhere.

When he had been little, he would scream in distress and dread and confusion and fright, and anxious caregivers – sometimes with the matron playing mother hen not far behind – would frantically wake him up and then spend all night giving him sweets, soothing him with gentle hands patting his head and his back, and loving, motherly words whispered into his needy ear.

And yet, no matter how much he feared, how much he declined his unreasonable excitement over it, Harry craved for more and more seconds spent participating in that freak show where people wore weird dresses, waved sticks proudly called "wands", could heal a broken arm or leg or neck all in a jiffy, talked to snakes in scary but strangely alluring hisses, and his dream-counterpart, the person he was in them, cackled at death and blood and murder.

Dragons existed. Mermaids sang and combed their hair in lakes. Witches smiled. Magic was real.

Sometimes, Harry felt more at home in that fantasy world than here.

Sometimes, he thought he didn't belong in the grey routinous reality that was Godric's Hollow Orphanage.

But as soon as the revelation came, the fear of _not fitting in_ warded it off, and he was back to his dilemma again.

The group of children mulled over his words, everyone bearing different facial expressions, and Harry allowed himself a moment to relax. It felt good to be liked and admired, but he needed some space, too, and sometimes getting it was so damn difficult.

The orphanage pre-schooling only made it all harder.

If only he didn't have to go to those stupid, useless lessons...

_Crash. _

Harry, Cathy, and Jimmy turned around to catch the sight of a furious Miss Johnson – oh, could it be seven o'clock then already? – who had been storming through the crowd of children to gather all those under the age of six, collide with Ben Jonathan, who dropped his plate-filled tray at that.

Fascinated, Harry watched the leftovers of juice spill and flow into an abstract mosaic on the white tiles of the cafeteria.

Some of the remaining food – while the younger children all got meat and potatoes that day, there wasn't enough for the older orphans, and they had all gotten grey repugnant oatmeal – splattered across Miss Johnson's beautiful milky-white dress and even got on her new sandals.

The young woman stood there as her mouth opened and closed over and over again. No sound escaped.

"Uh-oh." Hadrian cast a nervous look at her facial expression that was slowly morphing from bewildered to angered, then at his friends.

He leaned over the table, waving his hand to get the attention of his mates.

He got it.

"Listen here," he muttered urgently, flipping a glance over his shoulder again. "I don't think we should go to the lessons today-"

"But- She's going to get even angrier then!-"

"-You can't mean it, Harry! She'll murder us in our beds!"

"Don't be silly," Harry waved them off while urging Cathy to stand up. "If she does go to our bedrooms at night, somebody's gotta notice if she tries anything. There are six of us, for Heaven's sake!- But I'm not talking 'bout that-"

Behind his back, there broke out shouting and hysteria and loud complaints and an outburst of fury. _Wonderful. Even less time now._

_Do they want to get stuck with an aggravated hag on purpose?_ Harry asked himself.

Ben Jonathan burst into tears, and Harry couldn't keep himself from forming a vindictive smile. _Get that, you git! Don't you regret trying to push me off the stairs now?_

Small revenge: check.

Thoughts in his head churned merrily as Harry urged his friends to speed up and dash to the second exit, through the kitchens, to which he had access thanks to his good relationship with the menacing cook.

No pre-school, and his friends still followed him wherever!

Harry couldn't imagine life different, or better.

**{Tearing the Veil from Grace}**

As soon as Harry opened his eyes and slid into the dream, he realised that today it would be a nightmare.

_I have to get out of here_, he thought, trying to frantically look around. Except that eyes were not his own, and his gaze was still pinning down a battered man Harry had seen a couple of times before. Before, the person, the 'druid', had looked so majestically powerful and enchanting, none of that pitiful state. _Quickly. Fast. Please. I hope that someone finds me tossing in my sleep and wakes me up- Oh, God. I don't want to see this._

The frenzy did not pass, and only intensified when Harry heard his voice (_except that it isn't mine. It can't be_) hiss, and felt the familiar by now slippery wetness moving up his arm as it tagged along with the equally slippery thin body.

Ah, yes. The snake. Nagini, his dream counterpart called it- _her_. Whatever.

As she watched the scene unfolding in front of their eyes, her scales glimmered in the well-lit cave adorned with animal bits: furs, skins, horns, and heads, and hooves. That community Harry briefly glimpsed valued those things a lot, and this part of the cave was the immobile man's home. The quantity of the game and the trophies marked his high status, or so his comrade had once remarked off-handedly.

"Tut, tut, didn't I tell you in precise detail what would a betrayal from your part mean for your well-being, Eudeyrn?" the cold voice that would haunt Harry during the day and in the other, normal nightmares, drawled. "I was so merciful to you, giving you a chance to participate in the rebuilding of the wizarding world..." Suddenly, his fists tightened and a storm of rage washed away the calmness. "And you dare throw all my kindness back to my face! What did this mudblood-lover offer that you hadn't already had?"

Harry didn't want to be there. He wanted to rebel, but didn't know how; the mechanics of this entire phenomenon represented a mystery to him. He wanted to change what he feared would come next, like it always did in the dreams, – it was wrong, even his child's mind understood it – but the body was not his own and moved on its own accord, or rather, guided by the will of the terrible person Harry was in the dreams.

"Don't want to reply?" the voice – it was much simpler thinking of it in abstract – mused before breaking into dark chuckles. "Oh, yes, you _can't_. Sometimes, I forget how effective the petrification spell is."

The man on the floor whimpered. Tried to. Harry could see Eudeyrn's eyes darting from one side to the other in search of a means to either end his sufferings or flee, but an obscure part of Harry, the one connected to the person he was here, knew he wouldn't find one.

The boy's consciousness flailed in panic and searched for a swift escape, but, like always, an invisible power forced it to root to the body that didn't belong to Harry.

It was all...

Suffocating. Immobilising. Terrifying.

He wanted to help. He _needed_ to help. It was the right, the proper thing, as all their caregivers had taught them. _Human life is precious, and taking it or threatening it is the epitome of evil_, the voice of Miss Johnson sternly preached in his mind as memories transported Harry to that day in the classroom when the woman had revealed what made up the very core of goodness and what was put on a high pedestal amongst the judges in the highest Heavens: compassion.

Harry felt his body move. The lax hold around the stick – the wand, he reminded himself, for this was how the occasional person he saw called it – tightened before lifting it and flicking.

A swish – and the druid man's lips parted, his eyes no longer the only moving part of his body.

Relief swished through Harry's spirit.

_Surely, now this is going to end? It's sorta like Mrs Rickety's punishments, right? Always threatening and scary, but when it actually comes to it, she lets everyone off the hook unless you do something... well, truly bad. And this guy looks nice. Certainly better than the me of here does. His punishment can't be too mean._

Eudeyrn, previously writhing but now still as a corpse, lifted his chin. Harry would have gasped if he could: a boyish grin adorned the man's face he had seen a couple of times before, always in his dreams, always benevolent and kind, now bared his teeth in an animalistic grimace rivalling that of the beheaded animals' in the cave. As if a final parting.

Harry's blood froze in his veins.

Eudeyrn threw his head back and laughed.

"The mistake you are committing now is the one that our vates has predicted," he warned hoarsely. His bright eyes reflected his triumph.

Harry's voice scoffed.

"That woman is as old as the musty cave she dwells in. Obviously, she errs. Both in her predictions and in her judgement." A cruel smile spread across his lips. "After all, had she been in good mental health, she would have never allowed me in. Another oversight of hers."

"If you go through with your betrayal, your dear one will perish, and we will not disclose the recipe for a cure," Eudeyrn snarled, his voice begging desperately but also in genuine concern, as if he didn't really care about himself but about that person who would be denied medicine.

'Harry' threw his head back to erupt into a peal of chuckles, high and cold, like the moon. A snide smirk spread across his lips as he petted Nagini.

"Are you attempting to bribe your way out of death?"

"Predicting _your_ death, I would say." The man's lips curled as he spat, "Which is long overdue. Albus Dumbledore should have smothered you before you reached the height of your powers."

'Harry' threw his head backwards and erupted into a merry bout of chuckles. Amusement lurked in his voice when he spoke again.

"If you believe that this is the limit of my abilities, then your vates didn't see anything at all. And never will again, because right now my faithful servant is working on her." He raised a mocking brow, daring the other to explode into a round of insults. "You didn't think I would live your traitorous lair without a final souvenir?"

The druid's eyes widened and he struggled to get up and fight 'Harry', all under the latter's cruel gaze. His efforts were in vain.

"You don't dare- Fool! You are making your situation worse! What on earth would make you kill _her_-"

"You didn't imagine that I would ever find out that your community were the ones whispering into the ears of the old coot of my supposed 'evil' and destructive destiny. Dumbledore has never learnt to keep his meddling nature in place, and it seems like his allies will have to pay the price." He sneered. "As always. Never himself."

"You are achieving nothing. Alaunus will succeed me, and we will choose another vates in place of Old Innogen, but when the time comes for you to seek out help, you will not find it. No support, no allies... You will fail. We have Seen it."

"I will never need your help," 'Harry' commented lightly, amusement dancing in his voice. "Never did, never will. Wishful thinking, my friend, is the one habit you should have gotten rid yourself of years ago." He tapped his chin in thought. "Well, at least you die a deluded fool with no regrets... I suppose you may count this a victory."

A cold chuckle escaped him and the wand in his fingers trembled with excitement, just as Harry's consciousness flailed about in panic, attempting to break through the haze the dream induced in him, and when the realisation crashed home that he couldn't escape or hide or cover his eyes and ears, and he screamed and resigned himself to a night of horrors, a sensation of someone touching him outside flooded him, and those gentle hands pulled him out.

**{Tearing the Veil from Grace}**

"Harry, Harry!" Mrs. Rickety, the matron of the orphanage cried out softly but frantically. Harry cracked his bleary eyes open to find a ring of concerned caregivers all watching him with different levels of concern lacing their expressions. He tried for a smile. It failed. "Are you having nightmares again?"

"Poor dear!"

"Do you want a biscuit? I must have some in the cupboard. They are nice, with chocolate!"

Harry gratefully smiled at their bustling, each of the women offering him a treat or a pat on the head or a kiss in the cheek – those he didn't like much but, well, wouldn't it be rude to bat them away? The sweets he accepted graciously, on the other hand. If nothing else, they worked wonderfully as bargaining chips with some older boys and girls, and Harry could always exchange the food he was so often given for a toy soldier or a cards or a nice scarf to don on in winter. The orphanage worked like that: everyone swapped objects and extracted favours, the children adored by the caregivers having the most profit.

Eventually, everyone left. Only Harry's three roommates remained – staying oddly silent, and even- Harry checked Jimmy's shuddering form. Yep. Even fearful. He frowned in puzzlement.

"Hey," he addressed them in a whisper. The room, star-lit through the wide curtain-less windows, didn't conceal anyone's expression; Harry clearly eyed Jimmy and Ben and two other, new boys whose names he couldn't quite remember. "They left. Sorry for waking you up."

"Again," one of the newcomers muttered.

Harry scratched the back of his head sheepishly. What a lousy roommate he made! Well, it's not like he asked for the nightmares, though. The contrary: he would gladly get rid of them, if only he knew how. While earlier he had found them to be an enchanting flight of imagination, some fuel for day-dreaming during the classes, after the visions had become more violent and confusing, he wanted them to stop.

Harry idly shifted his gaze to Ben Jonathan, only to freeze when he saw fright mixed with seeds of loathing.

"Jonathan? Why are you looking at me like this?"

"Wh- What was it?" Harry had to strain his ears to hear the question, and when he did, he tilted his head in confusion.

"Talking 'bout my nightmare? Big deal, been having them since forever. Should be used by now, no? Or are you gonna complain that I'm interrupting your beauty sleep again?"

Jonathan's constant stream of complaints was probably one of the main reasons they didn't get along well. The older boy lamented and nagged and whined, which often caused Harry to snap at him or go to the nearest caregiver to silence him. Obviously, an extra punishment didn't thrill the blond.

"Not that," Jimmy butted in. He fiddled with his fingers in his ordinary twitchy manner. "The bed frames, they shook... It's... Uh... Maybe 'twas a trick of sight, guys?"

The others traded glances uncertainly, while Harry still swam in his bewilderment.

"The hell are you talking about? The bed frames are sturdy." Harry tapped his with a finger as a proof. "See? Aren't moving. Besides, what _that _has to do with anything?"

"Well, sometimes strange things happen here..."

"Strange things happen in the village, too." Harry huffed, folding his arms. "Still don't see how that matters."

"They happen around you!" Jonathan snapped at him and poked an accusing finger in Harry's direction, which only made the black-haired boy snort. Jonathan's grin turned vicious. "All those odd things happen only when you're somewhere in here, 'specially when you've got those freaky dreams! Bed frames shake, candles light up, and that's not mentioning that time when our window exploded! You're freaky! Freaky, freaky, freaky!"

Harry barked in laughter. "What? You're idiotic today. Not that you're not like this any other day. The window was some drunkard throwing stones."

"Well," a boy interfered hesitantly, his eyes drifting between Harry and Jonathan. "They never found the bloke..."

"Scampered away, of course," Harry said calmly. He huffed out in aggravation at their doubting glances, but worry was slowly creeping into his gut; they had never interrogated him before. He didn't want it to start now, when he was still-

_-the nice man – tormented and dying, malicious laughs, severed heads of animals on the walls-_

-still under the remaining web of the dream's influence. If pushed... Harry might not react in a nice way. He had proved it before.

And he knew that some of the things he did were beyond the reach of others. Was it arrogance speaking or not, Harry didn't understand, but he always felt something... off about himself. As if he were different. Stronger. With a greater talent and potential, with strange energy bubbling in him and around him, sometimes bursting out – which coincided with the times Jonathan had mentioned, when odd anomalies occurred around him.

Harry had learnt to play the unwitting one by one, but he realised that it wouldn't last forever. One day, someone would find out...

And he didn't doubt that they would be as horrified as he had once been.

Why not, after all?

**{Tearing the Veil from Grace}**

_ ANs: you can throw the druids' names outta your heads for a looong while, btw. And there're not supposed to be many visions 'bout Voldy when Harry's still in the orphanage._

Next Chapter: a smidgen of Harry's powers breaking through, a meeting with a canon character.


End file.
